A mind unleashed?

In my meditation last night, Sam Harris (I use his 'Waking Up' app) suggested I notice that consciousness has no boundaries. No borders. All appears - sound, sight, sensation, smell, thought - in an unconstrained place-less, limitless space.

In a sense, yes: it is, with eyes closed especially, an awareness without boundaries.

But then I thought about what I have been reading - Mary Midgley's Beast and Man - in which Midgley, among other things, suggests that limits enable freedom. imagine that you can make any one of an infinite selection of choices. To decide ends up being not a matter of freedom, but of chance.

She argues that culture, like human nature, acts as a defining feature of an individual. the freedom comes from the ability to make decisions within a framework. I don't think I've got that perfectly correct - so, philosophers among you, my scant readership, please advise...

Anyway, I thought about how a baby's brain has so many possible connections at birth. the baby can recognise that a sentence in any language is a meaningful structure, but within weeks, or months, all languages bar the mother tongue become goobledegook. Not that the baby understands the meaning, obviously, but that the baby will show surprise at meaningless fragments of any language when very young, but only register that surprise at meaningless fragments of the mother tongue when a little older. Look, I haven't checked my facts here, but it's not too far removed from what I'm saying.

Point being, as the baby ages and more synaptic-paring takes place, the baby's 'thinking' is restricted to what seems to be 'normal' in the world in which it has made its appearance.

We are all like that - and have a tendency to get more so as we age. We decide we like theatre, but not musicals. So our ability to appreciate a musical dies away. We decide we like left-wing politics and so only The Guardian seems to be telling 'the truth'. We reaffirm our biases and narrow the bandwidth of our experiences.

It's not for nothing that guides on creative thinking suggest we try out new things. Go to a ballet (not now - but you can watch them on YouTube); visit a foreign country (not now - but you can read Bruce Chatwin); learn a foreign language or a new skill (I taught myself to draw and paint some years back- I'm not very good, but I appreciate art so much more); try torn newspapers instead of loo roll. Whatever. We have time.

And right now, the world outside has been made uncanny. Every morning is like the opening line of The Day of the Triffids - 'When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere...'

Our poor little hide-bound, skull-encased brains are trying to make sense of the unreality of it all. And we sink into habitual behaviours to ease the fear. For many mothers, I imagine - as I know it was for mine, a response to fear is to make the home safe. So, of course, you fill the freezer and the pantry. For those accustomed to feelings of disenfranchisement, anger and resentment at the powers that be may be the only 'sane' (in their terms) response.

For me, usually, it's seeking out information. But I quickly realised that made it worse. Because there is nothing I can do with the information. And so I opted for my second response. To talk to myself on a page. This is my freedom within the constraints of my self and my circumstances. I have chosen to write and think rather than read and fear.

However, as this becomes a new normal, we might find adaptations and changes. Let's be mindful of them. Let's retain our freedom to imagine and choose the best selves we can be.